1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to radio telecommunication systems and, more particularly, to a geographical database for providing information to the subscribers of cellular radio systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years the growth of mobile radio telephone systems, particularly cellular telephone systems has been phenomenal. Such systems enable complete telecommunications facilities to be furnished to a community, city, or even an entire country without the time and expense of installing a wireline infrastructure. Moreover, radio telephone systems provide communication resources to a subscriber regardless of the physical position of the subscriber within the system or whether the subscriber is moving or stationary.
Each mobile radio telecommunication system operator must make a very large investment in infrastructure equipment, including mobile switching centers and base stations, in order to serve the geographic territory for which it has a license. As a result, each operator seeks to: (1) provide high quality telecommunication service to its subscribers at reasonable costs; (2) provide as many value added adjunctive services as possible to its subscribers in order to retain those subscribers and to attract new ones to its network; and (3) to increase its revenue from both basic telecommunication services and the provision of additional adjunctive communication services to its subscribers.
The subscribers of a mobile radio telecommunications system often move frequently and widely throughout a geographic area. This movement may take them into geographic areas with which they are personally unfamiliar. While some radio networks provide value added services to their subscribers such as dial up services which list restaurants, movies, emergency services and the like, these services are unable to identify the specific geographic location of the calling mobile station within the network and custom configure the information provided to it as a function of its current geographic location.
Often, a mobile radio subscriber, for example a mobile subscriber moving within a shopping center or even an in-door shopping mall, would be very interested in obtaining information with respect to the closest restaurant or coffee shop or speciality store of a particular type in their geographic area. Similarly, a motorist driving in an unfamiliar part of town who is running low on fuel would very interested in knowing the closest gasoline station to its current location. Likewise, a motorist seeking to get from town A to town B in an unfamiliar geographic area would also be interested in knowing the proper routes to drive in order to reach town B, particularly if roadway construction made the use of detours necessary.
While computerized navigation systems and geostationary positioning satellite systems have the capability of identifying the specific geographic position of a sensor on the face of the earth, such systems are generally not integrated with a communication system. Moreover, most communication systems are not adapted for the delivery of specific information from a database to a person requesting information of a particular type. The method and system of the present invention provides a geographical database integrated into a radio telecommunications system for providing specific information to a radio subscriber upon request. The specific information is based upon a specific request by the subscriber and may be configured to be directly associated with the current geographic position of the subscriber within the radio network.
There are numerous techniques for geographically locating a mobile station within a cellular radio system. These are used primarily for purposes for rendering emergency aid to the mobile subscriber or for configuring system resources, such as the characteristics of a directional antenna array for the specific position of a mobile subscriber. None of these systems identify the position of the mobile station with respect to other geographic elements for purposes of supplying it with information from a geographic database.